NUTMEGS AND MACE 129 



1860, recovered from the attacks of the pest by being 

 abandoned in a mixture of bushes and trees which have 

 sprung up since. 



Remedy. It must be remembered that certainly at 

 the present day, and apparently, too, in the early days 

 of the nutmeg plantations in Penang and Province 

 Wellesley, the nutmeg trees are grown in open, well- 

 weeded soil with no shade, and extremely hot, so that 

 the trees themselves are less strong, and the beetles 

 have everything in their favour, warmth and light, and 

 every facility for flying from tree to tree. Shading, 

 as is the custom in Banda and elsewhere, is therefore 

 desirable. 



The Chinese cultivators in Penang, I observed, did 

 not cut off and burn the dead or dying branches of the 

 affected trees, as good cultivators would do, but left 

 them on the ground in piles, or even used them to bank 

 up the earth round the stems of other trees, thus 

 absolutely bringing the pest into close proximity with 

 young and healthy trees. As I found the beetle living 

 6 in. below the ground, burying the boughs as the 

 Chinese do does not kill it, and it can easily dig its way 

 out. The irregular way in which trees in a nutmeg 

 plantation are attacked is very remarkable. I have 

 seen three trees standing side by side on a terrace 

 destroyed utterly, while all around them were trees in 

 the finest condition, with no signs of beetles even in the 

 branches. But the dead trees were standing on a very 

 exposed slope well above the tops of those on the lower 

 terraces, so that beetles flying, as beetles so often do, in 

 a straight line across the valley would strike these trees 

 first. Here again shade trees would be of value in 

 checking an incursion of pests of this nature. 



As is almost invariably the case in attacks of this 

 kind, the disease commences with the destruction of a 

 few branches, and the planters take no notice of this. 

 The beetles increase in numbers, a few trees die, still 

 no notice is taken. Then almost suddenly the disease 

 becomes virulent, every tree is attacked and quickly 



K 



